DURATION in office has been mentioned as the second requisite to the
energy of the Executive authority. This has relation to two objects:
to the personal firmness of the executive magistrate, in the
employment of his constitutional powers; and to the stability of the
system of administration which may have been adopted under his
auspices. With regard to the first, it must be evident, that the
longer the duration in office, the greater will be the probability
of obtaining so important an advantage. It is a general principle of
human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he
possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the
tenure by which he holds it; will be less attached to what he holds
by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he enjoys by a
durable or certain title; and, of course, will be willing to risk
more for the sake of the one, than for the sake of the other. This
remark is not less applicable to a political privilege, or honor, or
trust, than to any article of ordinary property. The inference from
it is, that a man acting in the capacity of chief magistrate, under
a consciousness that in a very short time he must lay down his
office, will be apt to feel himself too little interested in it to
hazard any material censure or perplexity, from the independent
exertion of his powers, or from encountering the ill-humors, however
transient, which may happen to prevail, either in a considerable
part of the society itself, or even in a predominant faction in the
legislative body. If the case should only be, that he might lay it
down, unless continued by a new choice, and if he should be desirous
of being continued, his wishes, conspiring with his fears, would
tend still more powerfully to corrupt his integrity, or debase his
fortitude. In either case, feebleness and irresolution must be the
characteristics of the station.
There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy
of the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or
in the legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men
entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes for which
government was instituted, as of the true means by which the public
happiness may be promoted. The republican principle demands that the
deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those
to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does
not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of
passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive
from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their
interests. It is a just observation, that the people commonly intend
the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to their very errors. But their
good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend that they
always reason right about the means of promoting it. They know from
experience that they sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so
seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are, by the wiles
of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the
avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their
confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to
possess rather than to deserve it. When occasions present
themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance
with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they
have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand
the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity
for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in
which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal
consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting
monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and
magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.
But however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded
complaisance in the Executive to the inclinations of the people, we
can with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors
of the legislature. The latter may sometimes stand in opposition to
the former, and at other times the people may be entirely neutral.
In either supposition, it is certainly desirable that the Executive
should be in a situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor
and decision.
The same rule which teaches the propriety of a partition between the
various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition
ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the
other. To what purpose separate the executive or the judiciary from
the legislative, if both the executive and the judiciary are so
constituted as to be at the absolute devotion of the legislative?
Such a separation must be merely nominal, and incapable of producing
the ends for which it was established. It is one thing to be
subordinate to the laws, and another to be dependent on the
legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the
fundamental principles of good government; and, whatever may be the
forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands. The
tendency of the legislative authority to absorb every other, has
been fully displayed and illustrated by examples in some preceding
numbers. In governments purely republican, this tendency is almost
irresistible. The representatives of the people, in a popular
assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people
themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at
the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the
exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a
breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. They
often appear disposed to exert an imperious control over the other
departments; and as they commonly have the people on their side,
they always act with such momentum as to make it very difficult for
the other members of the government to maintain the balance of the
Constitution.
It may perhaps be asked, how the shortness of the duration in office
can affect the independence of the Executive on the legislature,
unless the one were possessed of the power of appointing or
displacing the other. One answer to this inquiry may be drawn from
the principle already remarked--that is, from the slender interest a
man is apt to take in a short-lived advantage, and the little
inducement it affords him to expose himself, on account of it, to
any considerable inconvenience or hazard. Another answer, perhaps
more obvious, though not more conclusive, will result from the
consideration of the influence of the legislative body over the
people; which might be employed to prevent the re-election of a man
who, by an upright resistance to any sinister project of that body,
should have made himself obnoxious to its resentment.
It may be asked also, whether a duration of four years would answer
the end proposed; and if it would not, whether a less period, which
would at least be recommended by greater security against ambitious
designs, would not, for that reason, be preferable to a longer
period, which was at the same time, too short for the purpose of
inspiring the desired firmness and independence of the magistrate.
It cannot be affirmed, that a duration of four years, or any other
limited duration, would completely answer the end proposed; but it
would contribute towards it in a degree which would have a material
influence upon the spirit and character of the government. Between
the commencement and termination of such a period, there would
always be a considerable interval, in which the prospect of
annihilation would be sufficiently remote, not to have an improper
effect upon the conduct of a man imbued with a tolerable portion of
fortitude; and in which he might reasonably promise himself, that
there would be time enough before it arrived, to make the community
sensible of the propriety of the measures he might incline to
pursue. Though it be probable that, as he approached the moment when
the public were, by a new election, to signify their sense of his
conduct, his confidence, and with it his firmness, would decline;
yet both the one and the other would derive support from the
opportunities which his previous continuance in the station had
afforded him, of establishing himself in the esteem and good-will of
his constituents. He might, then, hazard with safety, in proportion
to the proofs he had given of his wisdom and integrity, and to the
title he had acquired to the respect and attachment of his
fellow-citizens. As, on the one hand, a duration of four years will
contribute to the firmness of the Executive in a sufficient degree
to render it a very valuable ingredient in the composition; so, on
the other, it is not enough to justify any alarm for the public
liberty. If a British House of Commons, from the most feeble
beginnings, from the mere power of assenting or disagreeing to the
imposition of a new tax, have, by rapid strides, reduced the
prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobility within
the limits they conceived to be compatible with the principles of a
free government, while they raised themselves to the rank and
consequence of co-equal branch of the legislature; if they have been
able, in one instance, to abolish both the royalty and the
aristocracy, and to overturn all the ancient establishments, as well
in the Church as State; if they have been able, on a recent
occasion, to make the monarch tremble at the prospect of an
innovation (footnote 1.) attempted by them, what would be to be
feared from an elective magistrate of four years' duration, with the
confined authorities of a President of the United States? What, but
that he might be unequal to the task which the Constitution assigns
him? I shall only add, that if his duration be such as to leave a
doubt of his firmness, that doubt is inconsistent with a jealousy of
his encroachments.
Signed "PUBLIUS"
Footnotes Explained.
Footnote Number 1. This was the case with respect to Mr. Fox's India
bill, which was carried in the House of Commons, and rejected in the
House of Lords, to the entire satisfaction, as it is said, of the
people.
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